


we were never good fighters (but very good soldiers)

by leiascully



Series: New York AU [5]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-12
Updated: 2009-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee is drunk for a week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were never good fighters (but very good soldiers)

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: NY AU  
> A/N: Title is misquoted from Erin McKeown's "We Are More".   
> Disclaimer: _Battlestar Galactica_ and all related characters belong to Ronald Moore, NBC Universal, Sci-Fi Channel, and Sky One. No infringement is intended and no profit is made from this.

Lee is drunk for a week. He lets Zak take him from bar to bar, even to Joe's, half-hoping for a glimpse of her. They down microbrewed pints, Lee two to Zak's one, until Zak hauls him home. Lee stumbles into work in the mornings barely feeling human, but the hangover from her is worse than the headache from the booze. The ache of losing her before they've even begun isn't eased by ibuprofen or the liter bottles of water he downs as he translates and bows and passes diplomats smoothly from aide to aide and meeting to meeting.

He is empty and lost, but he is his father's politic son. A soldier. He soldiers on.

He tells himself that it's stupid: it was one night. Idly, he Googles her name and finds an article about the exhibit. There is a photo of the Apollo piece. He stares at his face with its crown of light and tries to remember what that felt like, to look so confident and princely. He clicks the next article. Thrace, he learns, was home to warlike people, barbarians with high art. It suits her. Kara Thrace, bloodthirsty and artistic, more passion than any man can handle, worshiping at the altar of wine. She has dragged him out of his civilized world into her mythos and her mystery.

"Buddy, you gotta snap out of this," Zak says the fifth night, over a pint of Checker Cab, ordered because Lee couldn't resist the rasp of misery that came from drinking something billed as a bodacious blonde. "She's just a woman. There's a lot of them in New York."

"She's not just a woman," Lee mumbles into his glass.

"All right," Zak allows. "She's got something. But you can't let her do this to you."

Lee fixes his brother with a bleary eye. "You didn't tell me she was goddamn married."

"She's _what_?" Zak says. "Oh, Christ."

"She's _married_," Lee says, relishing the sting of it. "She's goddamn married, to a goddamn genuine sports star, and I'm never gonna see her again."

"Hey," Zak says awkwardly. "Lee, brother, I didn't know."

"You kissed her," Lee says, bitterness in his voice, and swigs at his beer.

"Yeah, but nothing more," Zak says. "I thought it was just one of those things, you know, that don't go anywhere." He rubs the back of his neck. "Christ."

"Yeah," Lee says, and drains his beer. He rests his forehead on the cool sticky wood of the bar and swears quietly.

Zak leans over the bar. "Gonna close out the tab," he says, waving his credit card at the bartender. "Come on, Lee. Let's get you home."

By Friday, Lee's too tired to think about the bar. He picks up his briefcase and his umbrella. The clouds have been looming all day; he's thinking about hailing a cab, just so he doesn't have to deal with the hot rank humid air of the subway. He almost missed his train two days ago, and as weary as he is of everything, it would be a load off his mind to have someone else drive for a few minutes. He walks out the door, nodding to his colleagues, and strides toward the sidewalk.

She is standing there, between the flags, wearing a worn shirtdress over jeans. Her hair is messy, whipped by the wind, and her sleeves are rolled up to show paint-blotched arms.

"Lee," she says, and her voice carries despite the breeze that makes the flags snap. He feels like the world has gone quiet, like he's enclosed in a canopy where only she can reach him, like he's listening to a radio tuned only to her frequency. He remembers the vision of stars the first time he saw her, and the way her body moved against his.

"Is this an apology?" he asks, his words sounding distant.

"Do you need it to be?" she asks.

"Kara, why do we even bother?" He turns away, as if he can leave her before she releases him.

She puts her hand on his arm. "Lee, listen to me. You're the only one."

"You kissed Zak," he reminds her.

She shrugs. "I've kissed a lot of people in my life, Lee. That was as far as it went." Her jaw clenches. "Not that it's any of your business, but understand me when I say I wasn't trying to screw you."

He arches one eyebrow and oddly, she blushes.

"Okay," she says. "But not like that. I thought this was different. Talk to me."

"You're married," he says. "I won't do that."

"What does that have to do with conversation?" she asks fiercely.

"You know goddamn well," he says.

"You don't know a goddamn thing about me," she hisses. "Or my goddamn marriage. So why don't you climb down off your noble high horse for an hour and talk to me? I came here. That ought to mean something. Then I'll get out of your life."

She'll never be out of his life, he thinks, any more than he'll forget the day New York was turned to ashes. He is too tired to argue. He checks his watch. "An hour."

"Starbucks?" she suggests warily. "Joe's?"

"My place," he says. "After all, nothing's gonna happen. Just talking."

"Right," she says, scratching a clot of paint from her skin. "Yeah."

Lee hails a cab. They climb inside and don't speak, after he gives his address to the cabbie, who's on his phone anyway. Lee thinks briefly about speaking to the guy, but glances at Kara and holds his tongue, looking out the window at the crowded streets. Drizzle speckles the windows. The cabbie honks and swears. It is pouring when they arrive. Lee pays the cabbie and opens his umbrella silently, holding it for Kara to scramble under. She stands tucked up almost under his arm, out of the wet, glowering to herself. He lets them into his building and ushers her up to his apartment, fingers at the small of her back. The thin cotton of her dress is damp. He thinks he can feel the rush of her thoughts under her skin.

Lee unlocks his door as she stands there. He shows her in, drops briefcase and umbrella by the door, tosses his jacket and tie over a chair, and sits on the touch. She flops into his armchair, looking at him out of the corners of his eyes. He leans forward and props his elbows on his knees.

"Talk," he says.

"Sam and I met in college," she says. "He played basketball. I played basketball. We were young. We were stupid. We fell in love. I blew my knee and changed my major. He kept playing. We eloped. He got drafted. I wasn't about to leave New York - I'd just gotten a grant and sold my first piece. We came to an agreement."

"Succinct," Lee says.

"It's my life," Kara says. "It's not your problem."

"God, I wish that were true," Lee says, looking at the ceiling.

"So walk away," Kara challenges. "Kick me out. Say goodbye and never see me again."

"Would to God I could," he snaps back, standing up and pacing, "but you picked me. You talked to me and you painted me and you kissed me and I can't get you out of my goddamn head. You do things to me, Kara. You make me remember things that never even happened. I look at you and I see a future that isn't real. It's some, I don't know, apocalyptic vision like something straight out of the movies, but I just can't let go."

"Stars," she says.

"Yeah," he says, "I see stars when I look at you."

She shakes her head like she's trying to clear her mind. "So what do we do?"

He spreads his hands. "I have no idea. You still love him?"

She looks at her knees. "He's my husband. I made a vow."

"And yet, you have an arrangement."

She looks up at him, her eyes clear. "It never covered this."

"No?" he asks. "Just swapping spit with my brother and god knows who else?"

"Compromise isn't my strong suit," she says. "Sam knows me better."

"I feel like I do too," Lee says.

"Yeah." Her voice is soft. She twists her fingers together in her lap and then switches to scraping bits of paint off her arms. "It's like I remember you."

"Tell me you can walk away from this," Lee says. He trembles a little with a swell of urgency. He has known her for a couple of weeks; it feels like she is the most crucial thing to the continuation of his existence.

"I don't want to," she says.

"So what, then?"

"I don't know," she says.

He sits on the arm of her chair and she looks up. They say nothing. Outside, the rain splashes down.


End file.
